Echoing Long After Us
by apostleofanime
Summary: Kaworu could still hear Shinji's cries ringing in his ears and feel his own head being separated from his body and his torso being crushed to pieces as Shinji tightened the Evangelion's grip when Kaworu decided to try again. Winner of the TPLB Fan-Fiction contest 2014


_This was my submission for the Toronto Public Library Fan Fiction Contest 2014. I considered posting the longer version, but as this is what won, I posted this instead._

_This plays on the idea of Kaworu going through countless timelines, and I was trying to communicate my ideas about his development through that, starting from the Manga-verse and leading up to 3.0. I found that he changed a lot, and wanted to explore that._

_Also I am a hopeless kawoshin fangirl, but this is far more introspection about Kaworu then it is romantic._

_Anyway, enjoy._

_-Ash_

* * *

Kaworu's one wish in that first timeline was that he could see Shinji's face, looking at Shinji instead of the metal features of the giant robot-like being that was Evangelion unit 1, but he knew that the Eva kept Shinji safe. Kaworu trusted Yui's presence to take care of Shinji.

Kaworu could still hear Shinji's cries ringing in his ears and feel his own head being separated from his body and his torso being crushed to pieces as Shinji tightened the Evangelion's grip when Kaworu decided to try again.

Kaworu had not meant to love the lilan, to love Shinji. He and his siblings, his fellow angels, were meant to wish for nothing but the human's destruction. Kaworu was meant to descend upon the planet Earth and tear it apart, not love it so much he abandoned his kin. But Kaworu had been created as Tabris, as the angel of free will, so for all he knew this had been part of the plan all along.

(He somehow doubted it.)

The space in between timelines was always strange. The place in between the world he had left behind and the infinite number in front of him. It was rather unhelpful, in Kaworu's opinion, for all it told him was that there were new realities in front of him, and not what was in them. Of course in the beginning he did not know this, and after catching his metaphorical breath, he dove straight into the next world.

(He realized later how little thought he had really put into the whole process, and found it bitterly amusing how much damage he was causing himself for a human who had only begun to consider loving him at the time.)

The second timeline was much like the first, and he began to get familiar with the sensation of being crushed into pieces. The third and fourth and tenth worlds were much the same, though Kaworu did try his best to change his actions. It seemed that no matter what he did, history repeated itself.

Perhaps, Kaworu considered, he should change the beginning.

He did not kill the cat, did not meet Shinji in the rubble, waited longer. He thought that perhaps he could resist the call of Lilith if he changed his own actions.

He could not.

Kaworu stayed in that place in between for what could have been minutes, could have been decades. Concepts such as time were abstract in that place, a fault that was paid for in the rushed moments between when Kaworu saw Shinji in each world, and when he met his inevitable demise.

_I think I may have been born to meet you_

His own words haunted him, though he believed them. Perhaps he was born for this. Perhaps this was some form of punishment for what he was, for what his brothers and sisters had done.

In the timelines where Kaworu had gone to school, he had felt sick when they studied Romeo and Juliet. Those characters where such fools, and he was so like them.

With something that would have been a sigh on any other creature, Kaworu looked back on the world he had just left as it began to fall into pieces, and entered the next world.

This one was different. Shinji had not become an Eva pilot, and the world was worse off than Kaworu had ever seen it. It did not take long for things to go wrong. He had at least two weeks to treasure each moment huddled beneath a tent in a refugee camp with Shinji, sharing body heat and giving Shinji as many rations as he could get his hands on. Then the pneumonia took hold. Shinji deteriorated quickly, his delicate human form that Kaworu so loved becoming the reason for his death. Shinji's body was simply too weak and malnourished to fight for long, and the camp was so overrun with sickness and injury that no one could spare a bed or medicine for a boy who was obviously dying. Kaworu was confused. It had never happened like this. It was always Kaworu who died first, and Shinji got to live, that was the point. If Shinji didn't live then what was the point of it all?

He curbed his thoughts on the last night, when Shinji's breath came raggedly and unevenly, his skin cold and clammy. Kaworu held his hand, and spoke to Shinji about pointless things for as long as he could. It was around two in the morning when Shinji's breathing got shallower. Kaworu, not knowing what else to do, lay down next to him, curling at his side, his arm draped around Shinji's skinny frame, trying to will warmth back into the boy next to him.

It began to snow outside, and Kaworu sang softly, a song of love and loss and triumph and cherry blossoms, until Shinji's breath finally stopped.

Kaworu did not cry. Some part of him was proud of that fact. He brought himself up onto his knees, laid a kiss on Shinji's cold forehead, and whispered:

"I will see you again soon."

He rose to his feet, and walked out into the cold. He did not want to do what he was planning where Shinji's body lay, did not want to sully Shinji's corpse with his blood. When he reached the edge of the camp, Kaworu drew Shinji's knife from his pocket, and jammed it into his throat.

He floated quietly between the worlds after that. Feeling more hopeless than ever before, Kaworu took hold of the warmth that was Shinji's soul, and let it pull him into the next world.

The timelines were never the same after that. Sometimes they were Evangelion pilots, sometimes they led lives uninterrupted by impacts or angels. Sometime Kaworu never saw Shinji at all. Sometimes Shinji loved him, sometimes hated him. Sometimes Shinji died first, but usually Kaworu did. He lost count of how many worlds he had tried to save.

Kaworu treasured the worlds that had never experienced the impact or the angels. Before each death, he held in his mind the image of Shinji doing peaceful things, wearing sweaters and reading books and going for coffee and awkwardly asking out Asuka Langley. Whether Shinji loved him or not in those worlds, Kaworu was grateful that Shinji was closer to being happy, even if something always went wrong, even in those peaceful timelines. One of them died, or one of their friends suffered, or there was war or disease or Yui once again died when Shinji was young, and Gendo Ikari planted the roots of misery in Shinji so deep that Kaworu could not help in time.

Kaworu almost gave up once. He had tried to stop, staying in the place between the worlds as long as he could, before he was pulled into the next timeline by Shinji's soul, and he thought perhaps he had not given everything in vain.

Finally, Kaworu reached the world where he waited. He waited until Shinji started the new impact, until Shinji was trapped inside the Eva with what was left of the original Rei Ayanami. Kaworu played along as Seele's puppet for as long as he needed to. (There was always Seele in the worlds where Kaworu and Shinji were Eva pilots, always that group of old men lurking in the background, pulling strings and attempting to use the power of the angels and the celestial beings for their own, always attempting to end the world and find the Dead Sea Scrolls for reasons Kaworu could not really grasp. Always being unwittingly manipulated by Gendo Ikari in the background, always at the price of Shinji's mind.)

This world was different enough that he thought perhaps this time he might be successful in bringing Shinji the happiness he desired.

Shinji was broken and scared and alone when Kaworu finally met him again. Kaworu offered what little comfort he could to a boy who had lost everything, gave answers to the Shinji's about what he had done as plainly as possible. He tried to love Shinji, tried to fix a world he knew he never could.

In a mess of piano notes and tears and blood,

_I really was born to meet you_

This world ended like so many others did. The DSS choker went off

_I'm sorry_

_This was not the happiness you wanted and deserved_

Kaworu stopped the next impact. He smiled at Shinji as kindly as he could, each tear that fell from Shinji's eyes pierced him, though a twisted part of himself was glad someone would mourn him.

Kaworu steadied himself in between the worlds, still rocked by the feeling of choking on blood and bursting apart, still hearing Shinji's screams.

It was time to try again.


End file.
